


Talk

by nevercomestheday



Category: Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Genre: Blood, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Fear, Guilt, Implied Sexual Content, Insomnia, M/M, POV Second Person, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-12 00:39:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5647573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevercomestheday/pseuds/nevercomestheday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hey, I'll protect you. I'm not gonna let anything happen to you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talk

**Author's Note:**

> These characters do not belong to me, they belong to Quentin Tarantino.
> 
> Also, this one just sort of happened. I was sitting at the coffee table in my living room coloring when all of a sudden, I got an idea and that urge to write... And now here we are! Hope you enjoy it. <3

Nice Guy Eddie will call any day now for your meeting with Joe Cabot. It’s a quarter after three in the morning and you can’t sleep at all. You lie awake, tracing figure-eights in the ceiling with your eyes. Every inch of your being is searing nervous energy, threatening to tear open your skin and set your body alight. 

 

You spent the day with White. You got home three hours ago and yet he’s still on your mind. When you flop down onto your bed, looking for some sort of relief for your excited nerves, all you find is more fear. You know you’re not supposed to like him, but here you are, savoring the way your code name sounded on his tongue. To hear him say Freddy would be enough to send you rocketing up to heaven, and you spend the next two sleepless hours trying to imagine how it would sound.

 

The first time you make love, he tells you his name. It feels like a promise, and when you open your mouth to return the favor, he stops you. 

“After the job, kid.”

He brings up future plans the next morning while he makes your coffee, and every cell in your body sings the same song.  _ Larry.  _

 

You’re snuggled up next to him, his slow breathing almost lulling you to join in his slumber. You’re not sure how you ended up being the big spoon, but he’s halfway on top of you. You run your fingers through his hair, restless thoughts slipping down into your stomach to gnaw at your insides. This time, fear and guilt work together to paint the grim predictive pictures in your mind. 

When you’re awake with him, you almost never feel this fear, or even the guilt. He puts an arm around you or kisses your forehead and safety washes over you, extinguishing the fiery terror burning up your spine. As much as you talk to him, as much as you do share, the main thing eating you alive can never come out. 

He asks all the time, “Nervous for the big job, ah kid?” 

You could say that. You usually don’t say anything at all, just nod silently while your thoughts scream out,  _ everything is a lie and I’m so so sorry.  _

You love him so much, in spite of yourself, in spite of your better judgement. You look at the clock on the nightstand and, without realizing, let out a cross between a sigh and a whimper.

He’s almost unbelievably in tune to you already. “Hm? What’s the matter?”

The internal debate roars as usual. Tell him the truth and spare him the pain, lie yourself out of it, beg to run away. You’re so tired at this point, you just start talking. You need to talk to someone, and he’s the only someone you want to talk to anymore.

“I can’t sleep.”

He rolls over to face you, shifts so he’s got his head propped up on one arm. He brushes the hair from your forehead and kisses you, slow and sleepy. 

“Anything you need to talk about?”

_ Yes. I’m a cop and I fell in love with you and I’m sorry Larry, oh god I’m sorry… _

“I guess I’m just nervous.”

He pulls you in close and lets you rest your head on his chest. “Hey, I’ll protect you. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.” 

You start to cry, sobs wracking your frame. It must be the lack of sleep, the fear, something, you tell yourself, besides the look of love in his eyes when he holds you.

He lets you cry, rubbing your back and stroking your hair as you shake in his arms. 

“I love you, Larry,” you choke out, trying not to hyperventilate.

“I love you too, kid,” he sighs. 

When you wake the next morning, sun bouncing off the walls and into your eyes, you can hear him in the kitchen, humming to himself. You suppress both the urge to jump out the window and the urge to run up to him, deciding instead to sit in the dark, sticky pool of guilt in the sheets around you. 

It takes a few deep breaths to get up, but you do, and he has breakfast waiting for you.

Of course he does.

 

For the rest of your life, you hear those words again and again, be they coming from his mouth or echoing through your head.

_ Hey, I’ll protect you. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you. _

 

The worst part of it all is that he, too, hears them, and the day of the heist, when the fear is pouring out with your blood onto the vinyl of the car seats, he’s kicking himself for letting you down. He feels the guilt and fear well up in his eyes just like you have all this time, and though he’s trying his damndest to be your pillar of strength, his heart is crumbling under the weight of your wounds. 

Now he’s the one feeling helpless.

 

Even while you’re bleeding there, unprotected and unsaved, and he’s telling anyone who’ll listen that your pain is his fault, you still feel like it’s yours.

 

It sort of is, really. 


End file.
